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ADDRESS 7^ 



OF THE 



HON. JAMES S. ROLLINS, 



OF MTSSOUPa 



ON THE 



Progress of Our Country, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE INDIANA UNIVERSITY, 

AT BLOOMIXGTON, 

On Tuesday Evening, June 27th, 1871. 



SAINT LOUIS: 

R. V. STUDLEY CO., PRINTERS AND LITHOGRAPHERS, 221 N. MAIN STREET. 

1S7I. 



ADDRESS 



OF THE 



I 



HON. JAMES S^'^ROLLINS, 



OF MISSOURI, 



ON THE 



Progress of Our Country, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE INDIANA UNIVERSITY, 

AT BLOOMINGTON, 



On Tuesday Evening, June 27th, 1871. 



SAINT LOUIS : 

R. P. STUDLEY CO., TRINTERS AND LITHOGRAPHERS, 231 N. MAIN STREET. 

I87I. 









< c 



V 



I 

^? 

I 

Chapel of the Indiana University, ^ 

Bloomington, June 28th, 1871. > 
Hon. Jas. S. Rollins: 

Y^ Si'y — At a meeting of the "Alumni Association " of the Indiana Uni- 

*^ versitj, held this day, the undersigned were appointed a Committee to 

^^ request a copy of the address, delivered by you before the Association last 

evening, for publication, and to present you a copy of the following 

resolution : 

^^Resolved^ by the Alumni Association of the Indiana University, that 
the Hon. James S. Rollins, a member of the Class of 1830, for his able, 
patriotic and eloquent address, delivered last evening, merits, and is hereby 
tendered, the sincere thanks of this Association." 

Your compliance will be highly gratifying to the Committee and the 
friends of the University. 

Respectfully yours, 

JOS. G. McPHEETERS, \ 

R. D. RICHARDSON, [ Committee. 

ROBT. C. FOSTER. J 



Bloomington, Ind., June 28th, 187 1. 

Messrs. Jos. G. McPheeters, R. D. Richardson, and Robt. C. Foster, 
Committee : 
Gentlemen — I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your polite 
note of this date, together with the Resolution adopted by the Alumni 
Association of Indiana Universitj'^, requesting a copy of the address delivered 
by me on the evening of the 27th inst. for publication. I most cheerfully 
comply with your request, and herewith place at your disposal a copy of 
the address. 

Thanking you and the Alumni Association for the pleasant terms in 
which you have been pleased to make this requisition upon me, I am, 
■with very high regard, 

Your obedient servant, 

JAS. S. ROLLINS. 



ADDRESS. 



THE PROGRESS OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Mr. President and Faculty, Ladies and Gentlemen, and 
Fellow Alumni : 

To me this is an eventful occasion. I come before you 
under circumstances rarely associated with the life of any man — 
circumstances fraught with personal considerations that gladden the 
heart, and quicken the understanding. 

Forty-one years ago, in September next, when but a lad oi 
seventeen years of age, I here graduated ; and, favored with the 
honors of this then infant institution, I took m}^ departure, with 
my parents, for the " far West," to seek a home beyond the 
" Father of Waters." 

I left Bloomington a boy without experience: I now return to 

this sacred spot, for the first time since, a man of ripe yearS; and 

with more than ordinary experience in public and in private life. 

Between then and now I have spanned a period of more than 
a generation — a period pregnant with the most marvelous events 
in the history of the human race. Swift succeeding years and 
events, made memorable with life and death, have passed away 
since 

'" That morn and this between — " 

And when I look back through the years that have intervened 
between my departure and m}' return, in the midst of this welcome 
my soul thrills with joy, when I can say to you, that it has been 
my endeavor, in public and in private affairs, to render unto others 
that which I would have others do unto Jme, and that I am not 
wholly unworthy to be recognized as one of the sons of the Uni- 
versity of Indiana. 



( 6 ) 

But I am to speak to you to-day of the "Progress of our Country," 
of the growth of the American Republic, and of the changes that 
have taken place under the Constitution since I bade farewell to my 
"Alma Mater." What theme is greater? What field of thought 
more varied, and prolific of knowledge for the student and scholar ? 
Cast vour eyes over this broad land, from ocean to ocean and from 
zone to zone ! Behold the vast achievements of our people, the 
rising glory of the Republic ! everywhere a source of admiration 
for the citizen, and an object of praise for the statesman. 

It was but yesterday — not a century ago — that a new nation was 
born amid tribulations upon the eastern declivity of the continent, 
with no ancestral lineage, no royal descent, despised by kings, weak 
before the powerful and wealthy nations of the earth, nought but 
legitimate parentage, the oftspring of revolution, and a determined 
people to give it character in history, and to entitle it to recognition 
amongst the nations of the earth. And yet it has moved forward in 
its majestic career, until to us who stand in the centre of this great 
valley, it encompasses the continent from the rising to the setting 
sun, and is fixed in history as the great Republican nation of the 
world. Its flag, the most perfect emblem of beauty and of power, 
floats in perfect amity and admiration over every sea, and to every 
kingdom of the earth, telling everywhere with honor of the Ameri- 
can name and the American character. Its ordinances are almost 
accounted of divine origin, and the provisions of its Constitution 
aftbrd protecting care alike to the humblest and the greatest of its 
citizens. Everywhere the American heart responds to the sublime 
command of its laws, which are the same to all. Wonderful 
Government I Well might the Eastern sages have come to view it 
in its humble birth, and the sun again stand still to behold such a 
nation born into existence ! 

At the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the area 
of the government was 341,756 square miles, exclusive of the North- 
western Territory — but little more than the present area of Texas, 
and far less than Alaska. It consisted of a bleak shore of the 
Atlantic, the nortiiern half of which De Tocqueville declared was 
to the Pilgrim Fathers an " inhospitable clime." 

The North-western Territory was then a wilderness of 368,756 
square miles, lying west of the Alleghenies, and bounded by the 
Mississippi ; and where you and I meet to-day was then an unex- 
plored region ruled by the wild beast and the Indian. The eye of 
civilized man had not yet looked up(Mi fruitful fields and thriving 



( 7 ) 

cities beyond the Ohio and the Mississippi. No Anglo Saxon had 
yet trod the majestic heights of the Rock}' Mountains ; no hand of 
avarice had yet gathered from the treasuries of their unsunned gold ! 
All was still buried in the obscurity of nature, waiting for the 
pioneer to discover, and the artisan and craftsman to bring into use 
for civilized men. 

At this time the population of the infant Republic was 3.939,827, 
not so many as the present population of the State of New York, 
and but little more than that of Pennsylvania. Its tonnage was 
474,374; the value of its exports $20,205,156, and the value of its 
imports $23,000,000. Our brave ancestors were then building 
wiser than they knew : they were carving an empire out of the 
wilderness. The pious invoked the favor of God, the patriot had 
faith in his government, and visions of future empire urged on the 
sages of the revolution to nobler deeds 

Steam as an industrial agent had not yet been brought into use ; 
the railway was unknown to the world ; the lightnings, uncurbed, 
still played in the heavens — no telegraph had yet been discovered. 
The elementary spelling-book was unknown to the school-house, 
and Webster's Dictionary to the college. All was rude and unde- 
veloped ; the nation was frontier, and yet do my thoughts linger 
along the sturdy pathway of that transition period. Great men, 
firm in their purpose to do good, and to establish a republican 
government commensurate with the continent itself and in obedience 
to the laws of God, moved in the majesty of human nature among 
the people of that eventful period. What a sublime drama in human 
life was then inaugurated on a continent but recently revealed to the 
elder families of man ! 

But it is my purpose to invite your attention, more particularly, 
to the progress of our countrv during the period intervening between 
my departure from this institution in 1830 and my return to it at 
the present time. 

From the organization of the government by the thirteen ori- 
ginal States let us pass rapidly over the more important political 
changes that had taken place previous to 1S30. Vermont and 
Kentucky were admitted into the Union in 1791, Tennessee in 1796) 
Ohio in 1802, the purchase of the Territory of Louisiana was made 
in 1803, and the State of Louisiana was admitted in 181 2, Indiana 
in 1816, Illinois in 1818, Alabama in 1819, Maine in 1S20, and 
Missouri in 182 1. In 1S30 the States and territorial possessions of 
our country embraced an area of 2,930,000 square miles. This gave 



( s ) 

us full control of the Mississippi river and its tributaries, part of the 
coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and also of the Pacific along the coast 
of Oregon. We then had increased from thirteen States and one 
Territory, to twenty-four States and three Territories. 

At that time the total population of the United States was I2,866,~ 
020, with 343,000 of this number belonging to Indiana, and 140,455 
to Missouri — not half as many as now inhabit the chief city of that 
great commonwealth ! 

The total exports of our country in 1830 were valued at $73,847,-- 
508, and the imports at $70,876,920. The commerce of the lakes 
and rivers was small, and the nation almost everywhere embraced 
by frontier life. Steam was then rapidly coming into use. Steamers 
along the coast were slowly but surely being sent forward to do the 
bidding of commerce and the will of man. Moving forward in the 
civil conquest of the continent, steamboats were rapidly appearing^ 
upon our Western rivers, and upon the Ohio, the Mississippi, the 
Illinois, the Missouri, and the Arkansas, the white breath of the 
engine mingled with the smoke ot the wigwam, as civilized men 
went forward from their parental homes to the wilds of the distant 

West. 

But the genius of man, in this as in all other efforts, could not be 
confined to rivers and oceans ; another growth of mind gave birth 
to the railway, and this must be regarded, since the invention of the 
steam engine, as the greatest aid to civilization the arts have pro- 
duced, in enabling the rapid intercommunion of men and of ideas, 
and the easy exchange of products. When I left Bloomington, in 
1830, there were but twenty-three miles of railway in the United 
States, and not until 1831 was a locomotive placed upon a track! 

At that date there were no railroads in Indiana, none in Missouri, 
none in the Mississippi valley, and no human mind to predict their 
growth, no genius had yet foretold the mighty triumphs which steam 
was soon to achieve on the American continent. Yet everywhere 
the nation was instinctive with progress, from the Atlantic to the 
Mississippi and beyond. 

Webster's Dictionary had just been published, the elementary 
spelling-book had reached the log school-house as a new evangel of 
knowledge, churches and colleges were rapidly following the march 
of empire. The pioneer was superceded by the sturdy husbandman, 
the craftsman, and the artisan. The preacher and the schoolmaster 
went hand in hand to the theoretical conquest of the human mind, 
I and, in ol)edience to the command of God and the instincts of the 



( 9 ) 

human soul, the Anglo Saxons moved forward to the civil conquest 
of the continent, from the rising to the setting sun. Their march 
has been uninterrupted, and impelled by an all-conquering zeaL 
Political and material grow^th went hand in hand. When the fron- 
tier boundary was removed be}ond organized States, new ones were 
added — Arkansas, with its 52,198 square miles, was admitted into 
the Union in 1836 ; Michigan, with 56,431 square miles, was ad- 
mitted in 1837 ; Florida, with 59,268 square miles, Iowa, with 
55,045 square miles, and Texas, with its 274,356 square miles, were- 
admitted in 1845. The annexation of Texas, the " Lone Star 
Republic," was a most important event in the political history of 
our country. It not only strengthened the institution of slavery, by 
giving it an outlet, extended our dominion and opened a vast field 
for the activity, enterprise and speculation of millions of our people^ 
but it gave to us an area of country larger than France, larger than 
Prussia, and when fully developed will be more wealthy and power- 
ful than the greatest nation of Europe. Wisconsin, with its 53,924 
square miles, was admitted in 1847. Then came the treaty of 
Guadalupe-Hidalgo, after the war with Mexico, which gave us 
California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorada, and New Mexico, 
comprising 611,548 square miles, almost as large as the old govern- 
ment and her northwestern territory. Soon after followed the Gads-^ 
den treaty, which gave us a fine strip of territory along the Gila 
river on our southwestern boundary. 

California, with its 188,981 square miles, was admitted in 1S50; 
Minnesota, with its 83,531, was admitted in 1857 ; Oregon, with its 
95,274, was admitted in 1859; and Kansas, with its 81,319 square 
miles, after an unparalleled struggle betwixt the Northern and 
Southern sentiment, in reference to the extension of African slavery,. 
was admitted in 1S61. 

This brings us to the most eventful period in our political history 
since the revolution and the formation of the government — a con- 
test, the seeds of which were planted when the government had its 
birth, and which were never eradicated. There was a difference of 
opinion from the very start in regard to the true interpretation of 
the fundamental law, the structure of the government, and the 
relative rights and powers of the States and of the general govern- 
ment under the constitution. It brings us to a consideration of the 
great rebellion, the struggle betwixt the free and the slave States.^ 
The subject of slavery was the exciting cause which precipitated the 
contest, but it was personal ambition no less than slavery, and the 



( lo ) 

violence of party spirit as well as this difference of opinion as to the 
true theory of the constitution, which had much to do in forcing on 
the rebellion. What an episode ! What a drama in our history ! 
The American patriot will forever mourn over its pages, and true 
and brave men will continue to shed tears of sorrow alike over the 
graves of the Blue and of the Gray ! 

In the midst of our grand career of extension and of progress God 
saw fit to send to our land the most terrible of all those fearful min- 
isters who fulfill his inscrutable decrees. Our people, like those of 
all previous times, have had their trials and difficulties^ growing 
out of their differences of opinion in regard to human rights and 
the structure of their government: an "irrepressible conflict" be- 
tween antagonistic principles, which culminated at last in rebellion 
and civil war, and which threatened for years to engulf all that was 
sacred and dear to every patriotic American heart in the destruction 
of the Federal Union, But I thank God that the people were equal 
to the task of its preservation. Appreciating the interests at stake, 
and guided by a pure and lofty patriotism, they sustained the cause 
of the government and of free institutions. The rebellion was 
crushed, and 4,000,000 human beings hitherto held in bondage were 
clothed with the attributes of freedom ; thus making our country 
free in fact as well as in name, and at last establishing upon a firm 
foundation the principles of the Declaration of Independence, for 
which the patriots and heroes of '^6 fought and bled, to enthrone 
upon the American continent. 

But let us close this bloody page of our country's history. " Pos- 
terity will look back on the accomplishment of emancipation, and 
the vindication of the principles of liberty w^ith pride, regarding the 
issue of the war not as the victory of the North, but as the fiat of 
God." Let us have hope in the living, and env}^ not the dead who, 
though misguided, did much in the conflict to elevate the valor of 
the American name. Let the poet weave his rhyme alike for the 
'•^JJlue and the Gray T 

"Asleep are the ranks of the dead 
Under the sod and the dew. 

Waiting the judgment day; 
Under the one the Blue, *" 

Under the other the Gray! 

"These in the robings of glory, 
Those in the gloom of defeat; 
All with the battle-blood gory, 
In the dusk of eternity meet. 



( " ) 

Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment day ; 
Under the laurel the Blue, 

Under the willow the Gray ! 

"No more shall the war-cry sever, 
Or the winding rivers be red; 
They banish our anger forever 

When they laurel the graves of our dead ! 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment day; 
Love and tears for the Blue, 
Tears and love for the Gray !" 

Let us now be consoled with the reflection that, whilst the 
desolations of war are visiting other lands, and the multitude in the 
frenzy of their niad ambition are razing to their foundation-stones 
those^ splendid monuments of human skill and ingenuity which 
have stood for centuries as the highest evidence of their advanced 
civilization, and the torch of the incendiary and madman has 
been indiscriminately applied to those grand temples of architectural 
taste and beauty, and to libraries and galleries of art which con- 
tained works that can never be replaced, and which were gathered 
from every quarter of the habitable globe to adorn and beautify the 
proudest city of the most accomplished people on earth— the Angel 
of Peace has spread his white wings over our continent, and under 
the favor of God, after all our trials, our people are enjoying un- 
interrupted happiness and prosperity. 

We have only to act the part of brave, and wise, and patriotic 
men, and profiting by onr bitter experience, to obliterate the preju- 
dice and enmity engendered by the civil war, and reconcile upon 
a liberal and enlightened basis the difterence of opinion which may 
still exist in different sections of our country, and by so doing, plant 
ourselves firmly upon the doctrines of the immortal Declaration of 
Independence, and march on under a free constitution, and in 
obedience to laws which recognize no distinction but that which 
genius, and talent, and industry, and moral worth confer. 

So wonderful has been our progress, and so great the national 
vitality, that even in the midst of war, states were admitted into 
the Union, territories organized, and railways constantly pushed 
forward to completion. In short, the great miracle of our material 
enterprise, the Pacific Railway, was wrought in the midst of re- 
bellion, and, strange as it may seem to you, that territic monster of 



( 12 ) 

the ocean, the Alabatna^ whilst on its mission of piracy, was 
stimulating American progress, beyond computation. Our com- 
mercial men of the sea-board cities were overburdened with first 
class merchant vessels, which were readily sold to English merchants 
at the rate of from $150,000 to $200,000, at the advent of the 
Alabama. They are now rotting in English harbors, and offered 
for sale at $3,000 and $4,000 each. A revolution in ship-building, 
almost simultaneous with the appearance of the Alabama on the 
high seas, gave the iron ships the preference, which, together with 
the dread of the Alabama, drove American capital from the ocean ^ 
unlocked the treasures of the Eastern cities, and sent it Westward 
over the continent to be invested in the building of railways, and 
bridges, and cities, and depots, and furnaces, and other enterprises 
of our civilization. Such has been essentially the indirect work of 
the Alabama, and while our foreign commerce has declined upon 
the Atlantic Ocean, our continental development has moved for- 
ward with a rapidity and success unknown to all human experience. 
Nor am I wanting, in this matter, for an example to prove the cor- 
rectness of this position. Bonaparte thought to cripple Britain by 
destroying her foreign trade. But its extinction in one quarter was 
almost immediately followed, either by the extension of it in another 
or by the extension of the home trade. His piracy upon the sea 
compelled the English people to stay at home, and work their soils 
and their metals ; to build their cities, construct machinery, enlarge 
their manufacturing establishments, found institutions, and develop 
wealth. So has that unlawful steamer done for us. Henceforth, 
when you speak of the Alabama^ remember to '* let the dead bury 
the dead," and with the ratification of the Treaty of Washington, 
the Alabama, recognized hitherto as a curse, may in the end prove 
a substantial blessing to our people. 

In 1862 West Virginia, with 33,000 square miles, was admitted 
into the Union ; in 1S64 Nevada, with 1 12,090 square miles, was 
admitted; and in 1867 Nebraska, the youngest of the sisterhood, 
with its 75^995 square miles, was admitted. 

Thus have we to-day thirty-seven States and eleven Territories, 
exclusive of the District of Columbia. Many of our Territories are 
on the threshhold of membership, and will soon be admitted into 
the Federal family. 

Having spanned the grand period under contemplation, by rapidly 
tracing the political growth of our country to its present greatness, 
it remains to be considered what it is to-day, in its political, material^ 



( 13 ) 

moral and intellectual development, and what mission our people 
have yet to fulfil in their further advancement— for great as has been 
our progress, our career is still onward I 

' ' We walk the wilderness to-day, 
The promised land to-morrow/' 

The progress of our country : What a vast array of facts to pre- 
sent to the human understanding ! Statistics of its growth, that 
baffle mathematical calculation, everywhere present themselves for 

consideration. 

When I left this institution forty-one years ago, twenty-four States 
constituted the Federal family. The buffalo and the red man con- 
tested the right to more than one-half of the Mississippi valley. 
But now, in the land of Hiawatha, the winds, the waves, and the 
lightnings do the bidding of civilized men. In 1830 our domain 
embraced an area of 2,339,264 square miles ; now it has an area of 
3,^27,654. Our population was then 12,866,020; now it is 

38,312,633 an increase of more than 6.000,000 for each intervening 

dece.de I During that time nearly 10,000,000 souls have been added 
to our numbers by means of immigration. Our exports in 1830 
amounted to $73,849,508, and our imports to $70,896,920; our 
imports in 1869 were valued at$437,3i4,25^. Our national wealth is 
estimated at $23,400,000,000, at an annual increase of $921,700,000. 
The value of our principal agricultural products are estimated at 
more than $3,000,000,000, and our industrial resources are valued 
at more than $4,000,000,000. 

There are now in the United States more than 50,000 miles of 
railroad, constructed at a cost of $2,000,000,000 ! When I left this 
institution, forty-one years ago, no citizen of Indiana thought of 
ever building railroads upon her soil ; now she has about 3,000 
miles, constructed at a cost of more than $100,000,000 ; and my own 
State has upwards of 2,000 miles in operation, at a cost of about 

$100,000,000. 

In 1869 our coast-wise and carrying^ trade amounted to a total 
tonnage of $4,144,640, with a total value of $186,508,760; whilst 
our entire foreign commerce is valued at $876,442,284. 

Passing from our foreign commerce we are nexc to inquire into 
the magnitude of our internal trade, and here our figures swell into 
grander proportions of measurements and values. We have an 
inland river navigation of 20,000 miles, penetrating the vast area of 
the Mississippi valley, and furnishing transportation for a large 
proportior of the products of sixteen States and two Territories 



( 14 ) 

besides extensive facilities afforded by canals. The river navigation 
of the great West, said Mr. Benton, " is the most wonderful on the 
globe, and, since the application of steam power to the propulsion 
of vessels, possesses the essential qualities of open navigation. 
Speed, distance, cheapness, magnitude of cargoes, are all there, 
and without the perils of the sea with storms and enemies. The 
steamboat is the ship of the river, and finds in the Mississippi and 
its tributaries the amplest theatre for the diffusion and display of its 
power. Wonderful river ! connected with seas by the head and by 
the mouth ; stretching its arms towards the Atlantic and the Pacific ; 
lying in a valley which is a valley from the Gulf of Mexico to 
Hudson's Bay ; drawing its first waters, not from rugged mountains, 
but from the plateau of the lakes in the centre of the continent, and 
in communication with the sources of the St. Lawrence and the 
streams which take their course north to Hudson's Bay ; draining 
the largest extent of the richest land ; collecting the products of 
every clime, even the frigid, to bear the whole to market in the 
south, and there to meet the products of the entire world. Such is 
the Mississippi ! and who can calculate the aggregate of its advan- 
tages, and the magnitude of its future commercial results?" This 
river and its tributaries float annually upon their bosoms more 
than $2,000,000,000 of commerce, which is an excess of more than 
$1 ,000,000,000 over our foreign commerce, and nearly $3,000,000,000 
in excess of our own carrying trade, coastwise and foreign. 

Forty -one years ago not more than 2,000,000 people resided 
upon the Mississippi and its tributaries, now the number has 
grown to at least 20,000,000 ! 

On the north we have the great lakes with their 2,000 vessels, 
and carrying a commercial business whose annual value is more 
than $450,000,000. On the south we have the Gulf of Mexico, 
with a general trade of more than $500,000,000 annually, in 
which we share largely ; and if we adopt a wise national policy 
will soon be doubled, and all under our control. 

In agriculture our progress has been equally wonderful, increas- 
ing from 1 13,000,000 acres of improved land in 1850, to 500,000,000 
of acres in 1870, according to the national census just taken. The 
cereals for 1869 are valued at $1,849,179,843. In 1832 there were 
only 70.000 hogsheads of sugar produced in the United States ; in 
1861, before the rebellion swept over the Southern States, there 
were produced 459,410 hogsheads of sugar. Prior to the rebellion 
the largest amount realized for the cotton crop in any one year 



( 15 ) 

amounted to $237,030,288 : in 1869 the crop yielded the sum of 
$302,600,000 ! 

The highest value placed upon the live stock in the United 
States prior to i860 was $1,075,000,000; in 1869 its estimated 
value was $1,537,704,029. 

The cash value of farms throughout the country in 181^0 was 
returned at $3,271,575,426; in i860 at $6,645,045,007; and, since 
we see that the valuation has quite doubled in the decade interven- 
ing between i^^o and i860, it is reasonable to believe that the 
valuation has doubled during the decade just passed, and that the 
present valuation of the farms of our country is well nigh worth 
$12,000,000 000 ! 

The agricultural implements of the country were valued in 1850. 
at $151,587,638 ; they are now properly put down at $400,000,000 1 

The live stock of the country also adds immense value to its 
wealth ; but I will not burden you with the figures necessary to 
express either the separate or aggregate value of the domestic 
animals. 

The advance of our people across the continent to the Pacific 
ocean led to the discovery, upon our own territory, of a mine of 
wealth far greater than that discovered by the ambitious and ima- 
ginative Spaniards in their search for the visioned "El Dorado!" 
Gold and silver and other precious metals, in inexhaustible mines,, 
have been discovered throughout the length and breadth of the 
Sierra Nevadas and Cordilleras. In 1867 the entire yield of gold 
and silver in the United States, from all sources, was $75,000,000 ; 
and it is safe to say that the average annual yield of the precious 
metals, since the discovery of the gold mines in 1849, ^^^ "°^ been 
less than $50,000,000. 

There are now 1,694 organized banks in the country, with a 
capital paid in of $432,163,611.00, and having a circulation of 
$299,789,895.45. 

Mechanical industry, like the blood of the human system, has 
ramified every quarter and locality of our country, and given 
strength and vitality to the national life. Muscle and brain have 
united the mechanical forces of nature, and created the loom, the 
cotton gin, the mill, the harvester, the printing press, the sewing^ 
machine, the spindle, and the ten thousand other forms of mechani- 
cal appliances to Ijuman use ; and they are now all in motion^ and 
doing the bidding of man in the civil conquest of this great continent. 
Everywhere is being rapidly organized one all-pervading system of 



( >6 ) 

mechanical industry, in harmony with the boundless resources and 
productions of the country. Everywhere capital and labor seek 
the legitimate rewards of industry and skill, and the achievement 
as alike grand and beneficent. 

Whether upon the shores of the Atlantic or Pacific — whether 
in the mountain fastness or the distant plain — whether in the pine 
forests of the North or the cotton fields of the South — whether upon 
the prairies of Illinois and Indiana or the mineral mountains of 
Missouri and Colorado — with all the vast movements of capital and 
labor, mechanical skill and commercial development — education has 
kept pace, and w^ith the powder of the enchanter's wand has con- 
stantly refined the citizen and elevated the State What a wonderful 
auxiliary to man's success and elevation have been, and are now, the 
common schools I Behold them moulded into existence by the 
Websfers^ the Beechers^ the Manns^ and other great apostles of 
■our educational system, gathering fruit from the tree of knowledge 
and giving it to the children of the Republic. Like the divine light 
and beneficence of the sun, which rises in the east and sends his 
€fiulgent rays westward to light up the world, so did the common 
school system rise in the East and go forth in its mission to the 
West, lighting up the minds of the millions of children that swarm 
upon the prairies and through the forests of America. Wonderful 
evangel, commissioned from on high to the human race ! In peace 
more powerful for the conquest of the world than army and navy. 
Up to the present year 50,000,000 copies of the Elementary Spelling 
Book have been furnished to the children of America. What an 
instrument of use and of power ! Upon all its pages are written 
progress to the human soul. Its mission has never yet been rivaled 
in the world- It has caused the land everywhere to blossom with 
schools and colleges. It is destined to supplant the sword and the 
bayonet with the milder arts of peace. All hail to the Spelling 
Book ! Let the children from a million log-cabin homes throughout 
the country speak its praise, and write, for me^ a new catechism 
formed of the alphabet, the numerals, and the multiplication table, 
though they came from Cadmus and the Arabs. 

Let us pass from the common school to the press ; and, as we 
approach this grand agency of modern enlightenment, which with 
its millions of white-winged messengers and broad-sheeted dynasties 
is wrapping the world with knowledge, let us realize that it is the 
legitimate offspring of advanced human progress — that it is one of 
the legitimate branches, growing high up on the great trunk of the 



( 17 ) 

common school system. This is at last, perhaps, the most effective 
mode of educating the masses of the people. A free and untram- 
meled press is the very bulwark of the liberties of the Republic. 
The diffusion of moral and intellectual light, and of political infor- 
mation, from this source has been unprecedented in our country in 
the annals of the human race. Accurate statistics, showing the 
growth and power of the press from the organization of the govern- 
ment, and more especially during the last forty years, would be 
almost incredible. I will not trouble you with these. In i860 the 
annual aggregate circulation of religious, political, and miscellaneous 
newspapers and periodicals amounted to 927,951,548 copies. As- 
suming that the growth of the press of the country has been as great 
during the last decade as it was during the previous one, the present 
number of papers and periodicals of all kinds would not fall far 
short of 7,000, and which would give an aggregate circulation of 
more than one thousand eight hundred millions, equal to at least 
forty-five copies to each person in the United States. This is indi- 
vidual and national progress ! What age can boast so much.^ What 
people in all past history can present such a showing as this? 

In literature, the country has kept pace with all our material 
achievements. Besides the rich contributions made by the Gen- 
eral Government to science and learning, men and women of genius 
and talent, have added many volumes of great interest to the 
common fund of our knowledge. Aside from the voluminous 
contributions made by distinguished men, representing the learned 
professions. Law, Medicine, and Divinity, our literature has been 
enriched by the American Encyclopedia, by the works of Cooper, 
Irving, Emerson, Bryant, Longfellow, Bancroft, Prescott, School- 
craft, Motley, Audubon, Draper, Dean, Gary, Greeley, Silliman, 
Agassiz, Margaret Fuller, Lydia Maria Child, and a host of other 
distinguished and well-deserving men and women. Benton gave us 
his Thirty Years in the U. S. Senate, and the Abridgment of the 
Debates in Congress ; we have Dean's History of Civilization, Gary's 
Principles of Social Science, Draper's Intellectual Developement of 
Europe, The Types of Mankind, and Indigenous Races of the 
Earth. Every science and every art is represented by American 
scholars, in American literature. Nor must it be omitted that our 
Government has contributed much to the general fund of science, 
as represented in the Reports of the Japan Expedition,, the Pacific 
Railroad Surveys ; Herndon and Gibbons' Exploration of the 
Amazon ; Lieut. J. M. Gillis' Naval Astronomical Expedition to the 



( iS ) 

Southern Hemisphere ; also the Report of the ^Mexican Boundary 
Survey ; the Survey for a Ship Canal across the Isthmus ; Owen's 
Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, and the 
Report of the Commissioners to the World's Fair at Paris, have all 
added largely to the literature and science of our country. 

Nor in the midst of this material development — the rush after wealth 
by our people — have they neglected wholly a taste for the fine arts, 
that highest expression of the human mind, as it is filled and moved 
by the love of all that is beautiful, in the widest sense of the term, 
and invariably forms the crowning chaplet of the most advanced 
civilization. We have every reason to believe that it will fulfil its 
proper mission upon our continent, in the production of monuments 
which will rival in excellence all that human genius has been able 
to accomplish elsewhere. Our brief past sufficiently indicates this. 
In historical painting, the works of West, Trumbull, Copley, and 
Alston, rank with the most successful efforts of European artists. 
In portraiture, Stewart, and lately Elliott, and many others, have 
left us delineations of the " human face divine " which come up to 
all that can be required in that department. Nor will the produc- 
tions of our modern landscape painters sufier in comparison with 
any that the pencil of Claude or Turner have left in the world. In 
our own Church we have the greatest landscape painter, whether 
of the old or modern masters. His '-'- Heart of the A?tdes^'* and 
''''Falls of Niagara^^ seem literal translations of nature as she 
appears in all her transcendant beauty and sublimity. They are 
scarcely pictures, but rather nature herself, as seen through the eyes 
of her most devoted worshippers. We have also our Hogarths and 
our Wilkies. The graphic outlines of Darley ; the humorous and 
natural productions of Mount, as seen in the ''''Bargaining for a 
Horse^' or those inimitable pictures " The folly Flatboatmen^^ 
" The Stump Speaker^'' and '''' 1 he County Election^'' by our great 
Missouri artist, Bingham, assure us that our social and political 
characteristics, as daily and annually exhibited, will not be lost in 
the lapse of time for want of an Art Record rendering them full 
justice. And in sculpture we can boast such names as Crawford, 
Rogers, Palmer, Powers, Mills, Stone, McDonald, Ream, Hosmer, 
and others, whose wonderful productions equally assure us that, in 
the progress of the age, this branch of the "fine arts" will keep pace 
with the diflusion of knowledge and education amongst the masses 
of the people, and the high standard of culture, refinement, and 
civilization, towards which we are rapidly tending. 



( 19 ) 

Not only have our people made rapid strides in art and invention, 
and added to the improvement of education and to the value of 
literature and science, but they have also contributed to the moral 
worth of mankind, and the advancement of a higher civilization. 
No people in the w^orld have ever stood so high in the scale of ele- 
vated life as the American people. There is no official position 
that the native-born citizen is not eligible to fill, and no opportunity 
that is not afforded to the adopted citizen. The government knows 
no distinction in rank or class. In obedience to the law the million- 
aire stands side by side with the husbandman, the craftsman and 
the artisan, knowing no distinction but that which God has made. 
Not only are the millions of our people sharing blessings and oppor- 
tunities never before afforded to any people upon earth, but in the 
greater amplitude of the enlightened and divine sentiment in the 
race, woman is now being lifted higher in the scale of civilization, 
higher in the intellectual, social, moral and civil ^valks of life, than 
ever before in all the ages of the past. The great statesman and 
enlightened reformer have already learned that civilization is 
measured by the position accorded to woman in nations and society^ 
And if the state would be elevated, if society would advance, then 
woman must take rank side by side with man — he her brother, and 
she his sister — he the master, she the mistress — the one complement- 
ing the other in personality and in duty throughout all the intrinsic 
relations of life. The wise father will accord to his daughter all 
the general advantages of education afforded to his son. The true 
government will open to her all the avenues of learning, and labor,, 
and industry, which she is fitted to fill, and which will promote her 
respectability and happiness ; and will permit her to go forth into 
the great battle of life, free and untrammeled, to do whatever her 
genius and energy can accomplish, consistent with the purity and 
dignity of her sex. 

Pursuing a further consideration of the progress of our civilization, 
the next highest and last subject to consider in the regular order is 
religion. In the advancement of our country, religion has had much 
to do with the affairs of our people. Actuated by its divine impulses 
millions of American citizens have enrolled themselves upon the 
records of the churches of the country, and pledged to obey the 
gospel and live according to the higher admonitions of the human 
soul. In the natural order of the human race — moving westward 
around the earth, to make the circuit of the globe — the mantle of 
Christianity fell upon the ancestors of the American people, and the 



( 20 ) 

seeds of that divine system were transplanted in our soil, and grew 
in the hearts of our people. Like the central orb of day, which 
rises in glory over the plains of Bethlehem, and sends his shining 
light onward over the continents, the oceans, and i*les of the sea, 
heralding the eternal will to all creatures ; so does the Saviour of 
mankind, the great moral light of the world, stand in history — 
beyond the Atlantic, beyond Europe, away back in the dim ages 
of the past — and from his eflulgent soul shines forth, over the ages 
and the continents, the divine light of the Eternal Father of the race. 
Then it is not from Brahtna^ nor from Buddha^ not from Sanchonla- 
thon^ not from Zoroaster nor Confucius^ but from Jesus of Nazareth, 
the loftiest spirit of celestial humanity ever reared upon earth, and 
*' who spake as never man spake," to whom we trace the religion 
of our country. Filled with a great '''' over-soul^'' he declared that 
his kingdom was not of this world, and he. went about in the 
humblest walks of life doing good, and '•' when he was reviled, he 
reviled not again." Such an one is the author and source of the 
Christian religion. I think I may safely say, that in moral and 
religious advancement our people have kept pace with the material 
and intellectual development of the country. Churches have multi- 
plied with all the various denominations, until the number of pro- 
fessed Protestants amounts to 30,000,000, with 5,000,000 belonging 
to the Catholic church. Of these the Methodist and Baptist families 
number each about 10,000,000 souls. The entire church property 
of the country, including that owned by the Roman Catholics, 
amounts to the total value of $300,000,000 ! The American Bible 
Society, organized half a century ago, has published since that 
time 27,000,000 volumes, consisting of Bibles, Testaments, Psalms, 
and Proverbs, nearly one-half of w^hich have been printed in other 
languages, and distributed, through the agency of the various mis- 
sionary societies, to every quarter of the globe. And besides these, 
a large number of Bibles and tracts have been published and dis- 
tributed outside of the American Bible Society. 

I have thus hastily and somewhat in detail run over the essential 
elements of art and industry, of discovery and invention, of civil 
government, of education, of science and civilization involved in 
our national progress, and recounted to you some of the leading 
facts connected with the growth and prosperity of the American 
people and the American Union. 

It remains for me to survey the whole in a single word, and ask 
you to consider it, with one grasp of the mind, as the grandest 



( 31 ) 

material revelation ever made to man — the sublimest national 
achievement ever attained on earth. Standing upon the intellectual 
eminence of our age we are permitted to look back over four 
decades of national growth, and 

''Each fainter trace tliat memory holds, 
So darkly of departed years, 
In one broad glance the soul beholds, 
And all that was at once appears." 

T look back through the years that formed that eventful period, 
and I see through all its days a constant movement of human beings 
from the Atlantic States to the prairies and forests of the great 
west ; I behold them crossing the Alleg:henies, the Potomac and the 
Blue Ridge. And as time advances, their numbers increasing as 
they gather new accessions from the older settlements of Ohio, 
West V^irginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, they pass over the Ohio^ 
the Tennessee^ the Cumberland^ the Wabash^ the Illinois^ and the 
Mississippi^ pitching their tents with the Indian and the buffalo and 
dotting the land all over with log cabins. We saw but yesterday 
the humble pioneer, bidding adieu to his kindred, the home of his 
birth and the graves of his fathers, with the march of empire west- 
ward. We see him to-day carving mighty States out of the hith- 
erto unbroken wilderness, and now, crowned with honor and blessed 
with the rewards of ceaseless toil, he takes his place in history, the 
American Pioneer and the American Patrician. 

But as I gaze upon the panoramic movement of this army of 
pioneers, as they go forth from the rising to the setting sun, I see in 
the East the power of steam giving birth to the steamboat and the 
locomotive — the locomotive and the steamboat traversing the land and 
water, throughout the wide domain of the country, each the servant 
of man yet doing that which man himself cannot do. And, as the 
boat and the car rushes from city to city and from State to State, 
*' from the myriad towering columns gushes, in mimic clouds, the 
quick breath of our new-born Titan. The ancient rocks echo to his 
shrill voice, and tremble as he rushes by. He troubles the waters 
and rides on their crest defiant. From the pine of the frozen 
North to the palmetto of the sunny South, his twin track tunnels 
the mountains, belts the prairie, and spans the flood. Mightiest 
of Kings is this son of fire ! Proudest of monarchs is this genius 
of the lamp and of the fountain." And as he reigns supreme, the 
people everywhere bless the names of Fulton, of Evans, of Watt 
and of Stephens, whose genius trained him to use. 



( 33 ) 

Still gazing over the four decades of our progress which have 
j^assed away since my departure from this institution, I see the 
rapid development of art and literature, the giant growth of educa- 
tion and commerce, of science and religion, of civilization and gov- 
ernment, all united in one grand purpose for the advancement of 
the American citizen ; and I see diffused through all the higher 
interests of our people, the Baconian philosophy, the revelations 
of Newton, and the practical wisdom of Franklin — all vast theo- 
retical conquests of the human mind, affording new starting points 
for mental growth and that still higher development which the un- 
known future is to reflect upon our race. 

And when I consider this vast progress of our country, I feel 
amazed, and am overwhelmed at the contemplation of its realities. 
And yet it has all moved forward with a reason and order '^ in 
which all have joined, ever advancing, ever encountering, and 
enduring an inevitable succession of events." Standing at the 
summit of the theme, let us consider, for one moment, how 
high our civil, intellectual and moral progress has attained in the 
ages. Let us rise to the grandeur of the comprehension, that we 
live in the most wonderful age of the world, and that, to-day, we 
stand at the highest point of its development. Tell me not of the 
mighty deeds recorded of antiquity ! of the imperial dynasties 
that have come and gone, nor of the tribes and kingdoms that 
have unceasingly moved through pestilence and revolutions from 
mortal sight into everlasting history, in panoramic succession 
through the ages that have passed away, long before the Southern 
Cross disappeared from the horizon of the countries of the Baltic, 
or the shepherds appeared on the plains of Chaldea. Tell me not 
of all previous human power — the Persian or the Roman empire — 
the conquests of Sesostris^ Xerxes^ Alexander^ Tamerlane and 
Caesar ! Tell me not of India's mysterious religion, that gave 
spiritual consolation to millions of our race long before Jehovah 
met Moses on Sinai, or Egypt gave birth to the pyramids ! Tell 
me not of Grecian philosophy and Roman lore. All, all are as the 
egg to the eagle when compared to the consummate triumphs of our 
age, and are shorn of power, and barren of essential intellectual 
and moral worth, when compared to the American people and the 
American republic. Yet this amazing progress of our country has 
almost been the growth of the last forty-one years ! 

Eight Roman lustrums have passed away since I left the thresh- 
old of my Ahna Mater. Since then what wondrous changes in 



( 23 ) 

this wilderness of the great West, where the Indian and the wolf 
disputed with us the empire over nature. No steam whistle herald- 
ing the thundering train, alarmed the feathered songster of the 
groves and prairies. No lightning flash spoke with the thought 
from ocean to ocean^ and vocalized with a miraculous organ beneath 
the depths of the sea. Man and woman toiled by hand labor in 
every field, where now we have harnessed the giant Cyclops of fire 
and steam to do our bidding. Toil and weariness have, in a great 
degree, been laid aside by man, whilst the engine plies steadily on 
to do the work ! Eight Ro7nan lustru772s have passed away, and 
the great moral and intellectual lights of a past generation have 
been blown out. Where are Clay and Webster^ and Calhoun and 
Everett ?ix\d Bentofi^ and their great compeers.? They have gone 
to sleep — 

"With Patriarchs of the infant world." 

Eight Roman lustrums have passed away, and Bloomington, 
then a small and inaccessible village, grown to the dimensions of a 
beautiful inland cit}^, a seat of science and learning, and the pleas- 
ant abode of cultivated men and women. 

The University of Indiana, endowed by the General Government, 
and located by the legislature in 1820 — 51 3'ears ago — but not fully 
organized until 1S39; having seasons of prosperity and of depres- 
sion, and passing through those ordeals incident to similar State 
institutions, and especially in a new country ; not always sus^tained 
as it should have been by the public authorities of the State, but at 
last 13 laced upon a solid foundation ; with a faculty distins;-uished for 
learning, fidelity and ability ; with its 600 graduates, besides the 
6,000 other students who have enjoyed its ample advantages, and 
gone forth to take their places in all departments of professional 
and industrial life ; the first university of the land to throw open its 
doors to the education of women ! and the very first to confer lite- 
rary honors upon the sex, numbering seven (as I am informed) in 
the graduating class of the present year, and grown to be one of 
the first educational institutions of the country. What a change ! 

The State of Indiana, then bordering upon the frontier, rich in the 
historic recollections of her earlv French settlements, and in the 
daring achievements of her brave sons in the second war for Inde- 
pendence, when they stood side by side with their brethren from 
Ohio and Kentucky, and under the leadership of their Johnsons, 
their Davies's, their Clarks, their Shelbys, and their Harrisons, upon 



( H ) 

the banks of the Thanies, and the plains of Tippecanoe^ rescued 
the land from the merciless savage, and dedicated it to the cause of 
progress and civilization. Now with its 1,700,000 inhabifants, 
grown to be the seventh State in the Union, with its beautiful capi- 
tol, with its canals and railways, with its growing cities, its 
extended commerce on the lakes and on the rivers, its infant manu- 
factories. Its prosperous system of common schools, with its mag- 
nificent school fund, greater than that of any other State (of equal 
population), its temples of learning and religion dotting its terri- 
tory in every direction. What a change! And Missouri, the 
State of my adoption, rising superior to every difficulty, and, like 
Anteus of old, gathering strength from her misfortunes, growing 
rapidly in population, in intelligence and in wealth, and bidding 
fair, at no distant day, to surpass her surrounding sisters, and 
become the great central commonwealth of the nation. Behold 
her! With 1,750,000 inhabitants, in honorable x'lVdXxy^ ahead ^ in 
population, of Indiana ! With her 45,000,000 of acres of land 
diversified with prairie and forest ; 13,000.000 for hemp ; 5,000,000 
for grape ; 15,000,000 for ordinary farming ; 3,000,000 for mining ; 
100,000,000 tons of coal annually for 1,300 3'ears ; 230,000,000 tons 
of iron above the ground ; with lead at 500 points ; copper in 
fifteen counties ; gold, zinc, tin, nickel, cobalt, emery, granite, 
marble, limestone, pipe clay, and metallic paints, within 100 miles 
of St. Louis, exciting the wonder and cupidity of the adventurous 
and enterprising of other States. Behold her ! With the future 
great city of the world sitting like a queen on the left bank of the 
Father of Waters, of unparalelled growth, and with a population 
of 312,000, the fourth city of the continent, with her splendid pub- 
lic grounds ; her innumerable churches, lifting their tall spires to 
the heavens ; her institutions of learning ; her well arranged 
public school S3^stem, equal to any in America ; her rapidly increas- 
ing commerce ; her great iron manufactories just springing into life, 
and the glow of whose furnaces cast a mellow light across the Mis- 
sissippi upon the rich bottom lands of Illinois ; her great railway 
system, centering in her commercial metropolis ; her gigantic 
bridges, the one just completed of iron spanning the Missouri 6,570 
feet in length, and the other, the most stupendous structure of the 
kind yet attempted upon the Western hemisphere, progressing 
rapidly to completion, under the direction of James B. Eads, the 
great engineer who conceived and planned it, a native of Dear- 



( 25 ) 

born county, Indiana, now a citizen of Missouri, and chaining for- 
ever, with ii'on links^ the people and the States on the east and west 
side of the Mississippi river. 

Eight Roman lustrums have passed away. I look around me, 
and I behold still other changes, which leave their impress upon the 
heart, and awaken fond recollections of the days that are gone. 
Where are the public men of Indiana, who were laying the foun- 
dations of civil government in the wilderness here, and moulding 
the public sentiment of the country, when I was a student in these 
halls? Hardly one of them is left. I knew many of them; they 
often visited Bloomington, on interesting commencement and other 
similar occasions. They felt an abiding interest in the success of 
their young University. Having fulfilled their mission upon earthy 
they have gone to the better land ! 

The elder Hendricks^ Blackford^ Huntington^ Blake^ Howard^ 
Maxwell^ Wright^ Whitcomb^ Leavenworth^ Posey ^ Farnhatn^ 
Ketchum^ and a host of other worthy men, the benefits of whose 
labors the present generation are enjoying to-day. Time has also 
made vacant many seats here since September, 1830. Not a Pro- 
fessor remains who was at that time connected with this InstitU'- 
tion. Harney^ Hall^ Wyiie, all able and faithful men, who aided 
in laying broad and deep the foundations of the University of Indi- 
ana, have paid the debt of nature, and gone to 

' ' That undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
No traveller returns." 

Nor must I fail to speak here of the scholarly and accomplished 
Lathrop^ who was, both before and after his residence in Bloom- 
ington, connected first as President and afterwards as Professo 
with the University of the State of Missouri, located in the village 
where I reside. For many years he was my near neighbor and 
warm personal friend. The most perfect model of a Christian 
gentleman I ever knew ; who lived up to the highest standard of 
elevated moral principle, and when he came to die, the last feeble 
accents that fell from his lips, were the noble words: '^ I have 
endeavored to discharge my duty.'' The remembrance of his 
labors, together with those of his cotemporary and friend, so favor- 
ably known to you all, Dr. Da?iiel Read^ in the common cause of 
higher education, and of his many personal virtues, constitute a 
bright link, connecting indissolubly, in sympathy and friendship, the 
two first literary institutions of the great States of Indiana and 
Missouri. I accompanied Dr. Wylie from Washington College,. 



( 26 ) 

Pennsylvania, to this place. I was his pupil there for two years, 
before coming to Bloomington, and I only repeat a truth recog- 
nized by all who knew him, that for fidelity to duty^ sincerity in 
his friendships honesty of pur pose ^ -^Yoioxxnd and accurate schol- 
arship, and ability as an educator, he had few equals, and no 
superior in our country. For whatever I may have accomplished in 
life, I feel that I owe much to the training, the advice, the daily 
admonition, and the bright and noble example of this great and 
good man. 

Of those who were students here at the time of which I speak, 
many of them I have lost sight. They are scattered far and near 
over our broad land, filling well their places in the ranks of profes- 
sional and industrial life. The places of others of them are 
missing, missing forever ^ from the roll call of the Alumni ! 
Uumfner^ and Randall^ and Ketchum^ and others, have all gone 
down to the tomb, leaving behind them reputations without blemish 
and faithful representatives of our brethren in the spirit land. 
But where ? Oh ! 

"Where is my bosom friend, dearer than all?'' 

Miller ! Miller ! The fine scholar, able teacher, successful 
lawyer, and brilliant orator. Taking the honors of his class in the 
year 1831, and true to that attachment for each other formed in our 
early youth, at Washington, and in Bloomington, he came to Mis- 
souri, and located in the same county with myself. Indigent in his 
circumstances, he taught school for a livelihood, having established 
a classical academy, which became afterwards the foundation of 
the University of the State of Missouri, destined to be one of the 
great educational and scientific institutions of our country. Per- 
fecting his scholarship, and controlled by a higher ambition, he 
studied the law, and, in conjunction with myself, practised the pro- 
fession successfully for a number of years. No man of his age stood 
higher, or had made a better impression. If he had lived, he would 
have ranked to-day with the ablest men and profoundest jurists of 
our State. But, alas ! 

" Disease marked him for her own." 

Inheriting the seeds of pulmonary atiection, he was compelled to 
abandon his profession ; and as a last "remedy, under the advice of 
my venerated father, who was an able physician, he ventured upon 
a trip across the wild plains to New Mexico, hoping to derive 
benefit from the pure air of that healthful region. But the effort 



( ^7 ) 

was too much for him ; he did not reach his destination. He died 
upon the w^ay, at the early age of 30, and was buried at the foot of 
the mountains, in that then unknown wilderness ! No imperishable 
mound marks the spot where he lies, sweet flowers bloom in per- 
petual fragrance, and the wild winds of the snow-clad mountains 
sigh daily their sad requiem over his early grave ! 

'' Oh ! what a noble heart was here undone, 
When Science" self destroyed her fa\orite son I'' 

It is under such circumstances, and Vv^ith such thrilling memories 
crowding upon the heart, that I come to greet you, my brother 
Alumni, to shed a tear over the graves of our companions w^ho are 
gone, and to re-pledge the steadiness of my friendship to you, to our 
beloved brethren, scattered far and wide over our great country, and 
to renew my devotion to the best interests of our common mother. 
I return to you after this long separation for the first time, with my 
beautiful children witnesses of these pledges, and it may be the last 
time that all of us shall ever meet again around this sacred altar. 
And in all this joy of meeting, there is to me a sorrow, a ^^rze/thsit 
penetrates the depths of ^/ze soul. Intervening time, indeed, has 
wrought its changes, and, since many of the good and true men whom 
I parted with on this spot forty-one years ago have *' crossed over the 
river," I stand here in yoi^^r midst almost alone. A ''''reed shaken in 
the ivind^'' '''the voice of one crying' in the xvilderness^'' the marks 
of age are upon my brow, and the furrows of time upon my cheeks ; 
my race, too, is almost run ; and while the lessons of life crowd 
upon my memory, the solemn evidences of death are also around 
me, bearing constant witness of the mutability of all things, and of 
our resistless advance to an unsolved future. When I consider how 
frail is man, how unrelenting is time, in the helplessness of my na- 
ture I am led to exclaim : O God ! who dwellest in the high and 
holy place, I turn in humble gratitude to Thee, and offer the bene- 
dictions of my heart. Let there be peace to the dead, and blessings 
to the living ! 

Nor can I close this already too extended address, without saying 
a word upon the subject of the American Union, for I know of no 
earthly theme so great, no achievem.ent so important, none that de- 
mands the devotion and guardian care so much, as the American 
Union ! 

And why should these States be severed? Look at Indiana and 
Kentucky, twin sisters of the great Republic, who have a common 
inheritance in the recollection of the patriotic and heroic actions of 



( 28 ) 

their brave sons, fighting for the honor of our common country ; 
whose sons and daughters have married and intermarried, bound 
thus by the ties of friendship and of blood ; v^hose territories are 
separated only by the silver thread of that beautiful river, on the 
smooth bosom of w^hose bright waters are borne to a common mar- 
ket the products of their respective sons of toil ; the merry voices 
of whose children straying along its banks, echo from shore to 
shore, as they go and return, morning and evening, to those nurse- 
ries of kfiowledge^ religion and patriotis7n^ the common schools of 
the two States, whose common soil is heated by the same sun, and 
refreshed by the same genial shower ; and where our hearts are oft- 
times gladdened in witnessing the grand spectacle of the beautiful 
rainbow arch spanning its bright waters, and over which the spirits 
of Peace should ever be permitted to pass and repass in harmony 
and love. 

Let us look at it for one moment. Running back through a long 
life of the race, and reading on the pathway of time and fortune 
the bloody and dimly written record of the devastating and way- 
ward march of mankind through the wilderness of their earthly pil- 
grimage, the American Continent and the American Union flashes 
upon the weary soul of the pilgrim as the sun-light of heaven 
flashed upon the blind Bartemeus when Jesus had restored his 
sight ! 

There is nothing more evident to my mind, than that Providence 
reserved the American continent as the promised land of the hu- 
man race ; and that God sent Columbus, guided by unseen hands, 
to reveal it to the elder families of man. And, though obscured for 
thousands of years by an impenetrable vale of waters, it was beheld 
afar oft', through the darkened ages of the past, and proclaimed — 

' ' The lost Atlantides that lay 
To ancient thought beyond the waves away." 

Behold the wisdom of God in preparing this continent for the future 
abode of man I He has laid its foundations upon the eternal granite 
of its hills ! He has pointed its boundaries with mountains reaching 
up their giant heights to the heavens ! He has laid it with rivers 
from zone to zone I He has watered it with lakes, and ordained it 
to be sprinkled with rains ! He has spread out its prairies, and up- 
lifted its forests I He has fertilized its lands, and enriched its veins 
with precious metals ! He has created for it vast coal fields, and 
moulded its mountains of iron ! He has made its green fields, and 
caused its flowers to bloom ! In wisdom has Pie ordered its cli- 



( ^9 ) 

mates, and with power has He given it greatness ! He has sur- 
rounded it with oceans, and lighted it from on high ! He has popu- 
lated it everywhere with animal life, and apportioned food for all ! 
In wisdom has He done it all, for humanity has He done it w^ell ! 
So perfect have been the operations of the Eternal Will in the crea- 
tion of America, and the creation of man, that the most perfect adap- 
tability exists between the government of the finite and the purposes 
of the Infinite. 

Behold the American continent, the handiwork of the Creator ! 
Behold the American Union, fashioned after the heavenly system ! 
Yonder system has its all-controlling, all-sustaining central sun, 
around which planetary orbs revolve in harmony and order in obe- 
dience to the Infinite Will : emblematic of His heavenly system, our 
system, the American Union, has its all-controlling, all-sustaining 
central power, around which magisterial States revolve in harmony 
and order, in obedience to the finite will. What greater evidence 
of the high attainments of our people? What greater evidence of 
the perfect government of the American Union? Our fathers, in 
their wisdom and aspirations, fashioned it after the government of 
God. What more can their children ? Ask the millions who live 
under the shield of the Constitution ! ask the patriot, what more can 
the American people do ? and the answer will come from millions 
of tongues, throughout the wide domain of the continent ; from the 
fields and the workshops ; from the busy cities and the mountain 
homes ; and from the lands beyond the sea — that, as you have 
formed the American Union according to the Government of 
Heaven, so you must live like unto God. This is the highest, the 
Divinest, and the all-expressive response of the American heart. 
As God is true and all-devoted to his Celestial Government, so 
must the American people be true and all-devoted to the American 
Union. It is the great hope of the world. Here, as typical of old, 
the oppressed of other lands seek refuge ; and Moses, transported 
from Pisgah, looks down with delight from his home above, and 
beholds again a new land of promise, upon which his earthly feet 
are not permitted to tread. Martyrs of human liberty, gone up 
from every land to people heaven, and the sages of the American 
Revolution, who have " crossed to the hills beyond," with Wash- 
ington—tall angel of light that he now is— counsel together in the 
courts of Heaven for the preservation and the perpetuity of the 
American Union. And God in His eternal wisdom directs and 
guides its great life and purposes. 



( 30 ) 

And, since the American Union has been moulded by the will of 
God and the wisdom of man, let us re-pledge ourselves and our child- 
ren, 'with soul, mind and strength, to an unalterable attachment to 
the Union of these States, and in after ages, as the generations of 
men pass from time to eternity, the coming millions, who, in more 
perfect life, will inherit its blessings and its honors, will sing praises 
to those whose wisdom moulded it into bein^r and fashioned it well. 
What an empire is in reservation for the American people when the 
Constitution overarches the entire Continent ! With the eyes of 
Cassandra I look forward through the years of the future, and be- 
hold the American Union moving forward in its majestic career 
with ever-increasing power and greatness, constantly enlarging and 
effacing the boundary lines of political communities, and absorbing 
new regions into the Federal family, until the Divine purpose is ac- 
complished. Composed of an hundred free, sovereign and independ- 
ent States, we become the ocean-bound Republic. It passes the tran- 
sition of ideas, and attains to an empire of mind as well as might. I 
see in the near future, its capitol transplanted and fixed in the center of 
its power, in this great valley, a capitol commensurate with the Re- 
public — its buildings moulded by an architectural skill and taste 
transcending the achievements of all previous genius, and standing 
upon its imperial heights, like the rock-built Pharos, its crowning 
honor the Goddess of Liberty, pure emblem of the Divine personi- 
fication of American principles, and above her form, and over this 
new capitol, I behold the flag of my country — the stars and stripes^ 
the eagle and the shield^ waving in everlasting honor, above all 
hate or fear. Around this great capitol of the American Union, I 
see gathered majestic marble forms of Columbus and Humboldt, 
Washington and Hamilton, of Franklin and Jefferson, of Hancock 
and Paine, of Adams and Marshall and Clinton, of Clay and Web- 
ster, of Harrison and Jackson, of Calhoun and Benton, Douglas 
and Lincoln, and other distinguished heroes of American liberty 
and American statesmanship — all immortal names in our history, 
and worthy to be honored and studied by the coming children of 
the American Union I 

" Great God! we thank Thee for this home — 

This bounteous birthland of the free, 
Where wanderers from afar may come, 

And breathe the air of liberty ! 
Still may her flowers untrampled spring, 

Her harvests wave, her cities rise ; 
And yet 'till Time shall fold his wing, 

Remain Earth's loveliest paradise I" 



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BINDERY INC. 

.^^ DEC 88 



N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 









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